Orange Moon Tuesday, December 23, 2025 "Prayer Works?"

The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe…

   

"Prayer Works?"         

    

     I recently saw a bumper sticker that stated, "Prayer works."

     Does it?  Or rather, does prayer result in God's working?  This more accurately states Biblical truth as we seek to offer our requests in accordance with Scripture and the Holy Spirit's leading.

    "And this is the confidence that we have in Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us" (I John 5:14).

    True prayer involves deep humility as we seek the involvement and actions of God regarding matters that transcend our abilities.  This includes the acknowledgment of our need for His guidance in making our requests "according to His will."  Communion with an infinite, eternal God we cannot see, hear, or touch?  How can we believe ourselves capable of such a wonder?  We cannot, in and of ourselves.  "Without Me, ye can do nothing" declared the Lord Jesus Christ (John 15:5).  Surely He included prayer in this stark declaration of our need.  Indeed, we do well to pray much about our praying in the light of who God is and who we are.  The disciples did so.  "Lord, teach us to pray" (Luke 11:1).  No wiser request has ever been offered in human history, nor is one forthcoming for all who seek to walk with God in genuine faith and faithfulness. 

   Recognizing that prayer requires the humility of "Without Me ye can do nothing" establishes the footing of heart and mind that leads us to effectually bow our knees before our Lord.  As we ask God to do what only He can do with the attitude and awareness that even our asking requires His gracious guidance, we more likely "pray with the understanding" of what communion with our Heavenly Father actually involves (I Corinthians 14:15).   Prayer works?  We can say this, so long as we thereby mean it works by seeking God's working to do that which only He can do - including His leadership and enabling of our praying.

"O send out Thy light and Thy truth: let them lead me, let them bring me unto Thy holy hill, and to Thy tabernacles."

(Psalm 43:3)

Weekly Memory Verse

    I am the Lord.  I change not.

(Malachi 3:6)

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Orange Moon Monday, December 22, 2025 "Relentless"

The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe…

   

"Relentless"         

    

     Relentless.  Relentless in who He is.  Relentless in what He does.   This describes the God of Scripture as the perfect adjective for inalterable holiness regarding His nature and way.  Relentless.

    "I am the Lord.  I change not" (Malachi 3:6).

    "God… worketh all things after the counsel of His own will" (Ephesians 1:3; 11).

    "Being confident of this very thing, that He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ" (Philippians 1:6).

    The more believers know our constantly faithful Lord and His constantly faithful doing, the more we will grow in devotion to Him and others.  Had we awoken this morning to the necessity of a consistent and growing walk by our own efforts, no faithful footsteps would lie ahead.  If, however, our call to relentless faith and faithfulness flows from Christ as the Life of our lives - and if we know it - we will join our Lord in a relentless faithfulness (His, perfect and infinite; ours, a work in progress).

   Every letter, word, page, verse, chapter, and book of Scripture speaks to the glory of God's complete - relentless  - consecration to His nature, purpose, and way.  The truth applies to our lives.  Our Heavenly Father inexorably works to fulfill the assurance of His present working in us, promising the ultimate fulfillment of a grace beyond all imagining:

    "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose. For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren" (Romans 8:28-29).

   In any moment, should the question come to mind, "What is God doing in my life?," we may not be provided with particulars and specifics.  Regarding His primary purpose, however, we can always be certain.  Our Heavenly Father works, He works relentlessly to conform us to the spiritual and moral image of the Lord Jesus.  He could do no better thing for us, nor provide any gift that compares with likeness to Christ.  We exist to serve as moons that shine with the light of the sun (Son), absorbing and reflecting the character of a Being whose goodness transcends all measure.  Such a miracle of mercy requires a relentless Redeemer, effecting a relentless work of redemption.  Our experience thereof requires knowing that our diligence began and forever continues with the diligence of God.  "Faithful is He who calleth you, who also will do it" (I Thessalonians 5:24).

   Wherever we may be in our walk on the path of righteousness, and to whatever degree we perceive the measure of our response to God, the Word of God and the Spirit of God beckons us to our only hope and fulfillment of faithfulness.  Namely, His faithfulness.  Or, in terms of present consideration, the relentlessness of God in being who He is, and doing what He does.  The writer of Hebrews speaks to this singular assurance of our hearts, and the certainty that fixing our gaze on our Lord's faithfulness will result in our own…

"Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.  For consider Him that endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds."

(Hebrews 12:2-3)

Weekly Memory Verse

        I am the Lord.  I change not.

 (Malachi 3:6).

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Orange Moon Wednesday, December 17, 2025 “Exceeding, Abundantly Above”

The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe…

   

"Exceeding, Abundantly Above"         

    

     Our prayers of request do not begin to measure up to God's answers.

      "Now unto Him that is able to do exceedingly, abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, unto Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end, Amen" (Ephesians 3:20).

    Our smallest supplication results in God's spectacular working to answer.  Of course, it does not look this way in most of what He does because our "ask or think" as finite beings is so minuscule in comparison to how our Heavenly Father supplies even the tiniest crumb or morsel in response to "give us this day our daily bread" (Matthew 6:11).  The confirmation?

    "But my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus" (Philippians 4:19).

   The Apostle Paul's declaration of how God provides for every need shines as one of those Scriptural lights that blinds even as it illuminates.  "All your need… riches in glory… by Christ Jesus."  Let us allow the magnitude of such grace to take our breath away.  When God supplies the crumb and the morsel, He does so from "the unsearchable riches of Christ" (Ephesians 3:8).  I have pondered this truth for nearly a half century, sought to pray according to its measure, preached it, written it, and believed it.  However, I barely know what it means.  I do know this, however.  God's answers to our prayers transcend every word we utter and every thought we think.  Paul clearly suggests that the crumb comes with Christ, as it were, and from His riches in glory.  The price of such provision?  

    "He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?" (Romans 8:32).

    Of all that the promise we consider means, the cost of its provision most confirms how abundantly our Heavenly Father answers even the simplest request.  Indeed, the next prayer to which He responds will be answered because He did not respond when the Lord Jesus cried out in the agony of abandonment, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" (Matthew 27:46).  How could the measure of provision not be "exceeding, abundantly above all we ask or think" in light of the "exceeding, abundantly above all we ask or think" price that purchased it?  

    We see so very little of what our Father does in answering the simplest prayer.  We must know by faith, however, that the tiniest morsel comes to us accompanied by marvels of mercy even eternity will not fully reveal.  We cannot begin to "ask or think" in accordance with the measure our Father supplies and provides.  The cost of His answers "by Christ Jesus" bears witness to such grace, and to the privilege and responsibility of the gift, the gift of prayer, we can only begin to understand and practice.

"Call unto Me, and I will answer thee and show thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not."

(Jeremiah 33:3)

Weekly Memory Verse

     "Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not?   For riches certainly make themselves wings; they fly away as an eagle toward heaven."

(Proverbs 23:5)

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